


Take your kid to work day

by Astriea



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: at least they're trying, gods really have no idea what family bonding is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 14:32:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1513961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astriea/pseuds/Astriea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Due to a certain half blood telling the gods that they need to spend more time with their kids, the gods decided to have a take your kid to work day.  Or what happens when the gods decide to have "family bonding even if it kills you"!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The letter

It was a normal day at camp half blood.

By normal I mean breakfast had barely started and, something had already gone horrendously wrong.

This days wrong thing came in the form Hermes flying into the camp, stealing Annabeth’s apple then, landing , while finally skidding to a stop right before he feel into the fire while announcing “Hello my cabin and others , I have a message for you” to the entire camp.

The camp was shocked. A god had never gone to the camp for a reason as trivial as a letter before.

“Is it about stealing Apples?” Annabeth was glaring at the messenger god, not looking amused in the slightest about the prank. It was a wide spread opinion in the camp that Annabeth had gotten the daring to bad mouth gods over the years from watching Percy do just that.

It was also wide spread opinion that it couldn’t be good to her health to keep up that habit. There is currently a camp pool running about which one of them will get killed by an angry god first. Percy is winning by far.

Thankfully for the daughter of Athena’s well being or at least traveling safety, the messenger god just smiled while taking a bite of her apple. “No, I have an actual message. Stealing an apple from you was just me having fun.”

With that, he grabbed a golden envelope out from his mail bag, gave it Chiron then flew away calling over his shoulder “By Kids! See you soon!” While a good deal of the camp wondered why the god had told them that he would see them soon, Chiron opened the letter.

While he read the letter, his face was taken over by a look of shock. Then almost reluctantly, he stood up announcing. “This is for all of you so; I’ll just read this letter now.” When the murmur caused by shock finally subsided he cleared his throat before starting.

“’Dear Half-bloods,’” He began. “’In light of the fact that we have been told that we don’t spend enough time with our kids. We have decided to have a ‘Take your kid to work day’ all of the gods have decided to take part in the event. We have all decided on things for today that has something to do with what our jobs as gods are. After breakfast, all Half-bloods will go to their cabin to get further instructions. We hope you will look forward to this day as we already do.

From, the gods.

p.s Don’t try to avoid it, you will participate in family bonding even if it kills you.

p.s.s The hunters of Artemis that are half bloods will participate in this too so play nice.

p.s.s. the Romans will also be there so, please don’t kill each other.”

It is safe to say that a good deal of the Demi-gods was excited for the day. Most of them were ecstatic. Percy was smiling at his table, the Athena cabin was talking excitedly among themselves. The Ares cabin was chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!”Obviously stoked about doing something battle related for a whole day.

Even though some didn’t want to do what they knew their godly Parent had in mind. Piper was cringing while the rest of her table was talking about the possibilities of either a shopping or a shipping day.

They were secretly excited about just spending time with their Godly parent. This was mostly due to the fact that most of the camp had only met their godly parent one time for probably a few minutes at most if at all.

Without the campers noticing, Chiron was praying that the death toll for today would be kept to a minimum,

**This is just the prologue so; the chapters will be longer for the rest of the story. I would write more in this chapter if I wasn’t having trouble staying awake. All of the Olympians and a few of the minor gods will be participating so, this story will be on the longish side.**


	2. Jason thinks about running away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason learns what he will be doing for the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thalia's chapter will be next and it will pick up where this one left off

After breakfast, all of the half-bloods walked back to their cabins some a bit faster than others. The Ares cabin was running and still chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” To a lot of people’s displeasure, they had kept this up for a while and, it looked like they wouldn’t stop unless they had a good reason.  
The Hermes cabin was marching back to their cabin, mocking the Ares cabin but, instead of chanting “Fight” they were cheering “Pranks! Pranks! Pranks!” There were some snickers there but it was everyone’s opinion that they had a cabin wide death wish.  
Percy and Annabeth were going a bit slower. It wasn’t like they didn’t want to spend the day with their godly parent. They just were trying to spend as much time with each other before they met up with their parents.  
Jason and Piper were doing the same. Except this time, poor Jason had to listen to his girlfriend complain about spending the day with her siblings and mom. “They’re probably going to force me into another makeover.” Piper was still a little sore about losing her ski jacket because of the first one.   
“Yeah poor you, you don’t get to spend time with your sister who won’t stop calling you kid and your dad with anger issues.” The only reason that Jason hadn’t made a run for it yet was the chance of seeing Thalia.  
Piper laughed. “Well, you aren’t being kidnapped by fashion crazed siblings, and those are just the boys.”  
“You know,” Leo said while chucking. “I actually got the better end of the deal here. My dad and siblings are neither crazed nor have anger issues.”  
“Don’t rub it in too much Repair boy.” Piper warned. “My siblings can still give you a makeover. They even ordered special soap to get all of the grease off of you.”  
Leo shuddered, remembering the time that he got kidnapped by the Aphrodite cabin and, got forced to get a makeover. Even with soap that was supposed to get rid of the toughest dirt, they hadn’t been able to get all of the grease off of him.  
“Not funny beauty queen, I still have the nightmares.”  
By this time, they had gotten to the cabins to see, much to their shock, a god or goddess in front of each one.  
Poseidon was giving a man hug to Percy.  
Annabeth and Athena were talking excitedly about something that Jason suspected was learning related.  
Ares was chanting with his kids.  
All of Piper’s siblings were flocking around their mom who, to Pipers horror, was already magically giving them a makeover.   
Even Hades had shown up for the occasion. He was standing at the door to his cabin, awkwardly talking to Nico and Hazel.  
“See you Sparky, beauty queen.” With that, Leo ran off to his siblings who were showing their dad their latest inventions.   
“I guess that I better get going,” Piper kissed him on the cheek then, walked over to her siblings. When she got there, her mom gave her a hug before his girl friend even got a makeover.  
Seeing no future way of stalling it, Jason walked over to his cabin to find his dad waiting for him.   
“Hi” he stood in front of his dad, awkwardly facing him. The truth was, he had only seen his dad twice in his life. Once when he became Praetor and, once the giant war was won.   
“Hello Jason.” His dad was in his Jupiter form but, he seemed to have a little trouble keeping it that way in the Greek camp.  
“So um, any idea where Thalia is?” Asked Jason, even if he felt a little bad about having nothing much else to talk about, Thalia was one of the few things that they had in common. Jason admitted in his head that Piper had a better relationship with her mom than he had with his dad.  
“Apollo volunteered to pick the hunters up. Both of them should be here any minute now.” His dad didn’t seem to be that good at this either.  
They were saved from any more awkward conversation by the sun car literally crashing into the lake.  
About twenty seconds later, Thalia swam to the surface and, when she got a good breath, started cursing Apollo. “Apollo you *censored* of all of the *censored* things that you could of done. Just waltzing in and kidnapping me and the hunters is not cool. Stop that *censored* laughing. This is not funny.”  
By this time, she had gotten to shore and was marching off, sparks dancing on her skin.  
“See you Thalia!” Shouted a laughing Apollo who, was standing next to what looked like a fourteen year old wearing hunters gear, who had his hair and eyes before, both of them went to meet up with the Apollo cabin.  
Holding back a laugh, Jason watched as Thalia stormed over to him looking like she was going to kill the next person who laughed at her.  
His sister’s hair was stuck to her face and her hunters outfit was dripping water. To top it all off, her usual eyeliner was running down her face, making her look like a raccoon.   
“Hi dad, kid. Just one word” She warned, sparks flaring in her hands.  
Jupiter/Zeus sighed, then with a wave of his hand, Thalia was fixed up, she looked as fearsome as ever. “Sorry about that” he murmured, like he wasn’t used to apologizing for anything. “We only let Apollo pick up the hunters because he can make his car big enough and, he has a daughter that is a hunter”  
“Yeah,” Thalia complained. “He uses her as an excuse to bother us all of the time.”  
Zeus was looking uncomfortable. “I’ll tell him to knock it off. Now, do either of you know what we’re doing today?” He looked at each of his kids, first at his rebel daughter then, Militaristic son.  
Jason was the first to speak up. “Something leadership related.” That was what Jupiter was respected for at his camp.”  
“Yes” he said. “Thalia,” he was looking at his daughter. “Any idea what else we will be doing today?” Jason was already well aware that Thalia was by far his favorite Demi-god child. He even cheated death for her by turning her into a pine tree. Jason was sure that if he died, he would stay dead. Not that he minded. He was too glad to have a sister to start getting jealous.   
“Um, something lighting related?” Even if he was the one Leo called Sparky, lighting was Thalia’s area of expertise.   
Zeus looked at her then, seemed to accept that he will never get much respect from her then, continued.  
“Yes, lighting is in the sky which is in my domain. Another thing that I do on an daily basis is do justice to those that deserve it and, since that is the least dangerous thing that I could think up of, we are going to do that.”  
Jason nodded, it made sense to him. When he looked over at his sister however, he noticed that she looked like she was holding back a sarcastic remark.  
His dad on the other hand, did not notice at all and, continued “Today we are going to Olympus to take part in my duties as a judge. Now, you better take theses. He gave them water bottles which had inside them some sort of liquid tinted gold.  
“What’s that?” Thalia was staring at the liquid like she was expecting it to poison her.  
“An invincibility potion, I will need to flash you to Olympus and, you will need to be invincible for a few minutes so, you won’t be incinerated”   
Both teenagers hurriedly gulped it down.   
Then, Zeus put his hands on each of his children’s shoulders and, after shouting a warning to look away, flashed all three of them to Olympus.  
They landed in the throne room. Jason had only been there one time after the Giant war and to him, it looked the same.  
“Now,” Zeus began. “Daily I have to be a judge for a lot of cases. Today, you will help me to decide the fates of these cases. “  
Jason was feeling relived. At camp Jupiter, as Praetor, he did this kind of thing all of the time. A few angry minor gods shouldn’t be that different right?  
At the first complaint, he was proven so very wrong.


	3. Thalia gets kidnapped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter but in Thalia's point of view.

Thalia’s day went horribly wrong before breakfast even began.  
Thalia had just woken up from a dreamless sleep. She was looking forward to not having to chase monsters today.   
They had just tracked down and caught the chimera yesterday so, Artemis had declared that today would be a day off. By day off, she meant spending the day doing target practice and cleaning up the camp sight. Thalia didn’t mind though. Even a little downtime was welcome.  
She should have known that something would have gone wrong.  
When she got out of her tent she was surprised to see Artemis talking to her brother.  
Apollo was a regular visitor at the camp site. He would often drop by a few times a week just to annoy his sister and her hunters.  
Thalia sighed. She shouldn’t have even been surprised that he had shown up. At least she wouldn’t have to be the one to deal with him today. Whenever he came here on one of their days off, it usually meant that he would kidnap his daughter Bell and, take her someplace to have “Father daughter time” the only reason that he was allowed to do this was that Artemis was happy that he paid attention to just one of his kids.   
What Thalia did not expect was for Apollo to suddenly take out a letter and start to wave it in his sister’s face.  
“Come on Arty, you know this is important. It’s not like I was the one who decided to do this. I just came here to pick them up.” Artemis and her brother were arguing about something. Since this was normal, she would have gone back inside if, she didn’t hear the , “pick them up” part.  
“What do you mean ‘pick them up’” She asked, dreading the answer.  
Apollo smiled. “Hey Thalia, didn’t see you there. What I meant was that I need to pick a few of you up for an event.”  
Now Thalia could see why Artemis was mad. “Pick us up? As in I’m” she pointed to herself “am going into that?” She pointed to the sun car which was currently in bus form.   
“Unfortunately yes” Artemis sighed.  
“Why” Artemis had never gave in to what her brother had asked of so quickly before.  
“Read this” The goddess told her handing her the letter Apollo had before.  
When she had finished reading it, Thalia was shocked.  
“Why are they doing this?” She asked, not caring that she had probably just offended him.  
Apollo shrugged, “Really, it was Poseidon’s idea and, a lot of us needed to have an excuse to spend time with our kids. Anyways, might as well see the mortal ones a couple of times in their lives right?”  
“Your parenting skills are touching.” She said sarcastically. “So when are we leaving? After breakfast I hope.” Thalia was not in the mood to have breakfast on the road.  
“Nope,” Apollo said happily before materializing a megaphone in his hand and shouting “Wakey Wakey girlies, if you’re a half-blood get up, I’m here to pick you up for a family day and, we have to go right now!”  
After a minute, eleven girls came out of their tents. All of them had bed heads, hastily put on clothes and, were glaring at the sun god.  
“What is this about?” Asked Phoebe glaring at him, not caring that if he wanted to, he could vaporize her in a second.   
Artemis glared at her brother. “The Olympians and a few others, have decided to have a ‘bring your kid to work day’, unfortunately, the half-blood hunters have to take part in this event too.”  
“Yeah, it’s supposed to start in thirty minutes so, we really have got to go”   
“Brother really,” Artemis protested. “At least give them time to get properly ready.”  
“Nope” He said, then without warning, he snapped his fingers and, before anyone could say ‘Idiot sun god’ trust me, Thalia tried. They were flashed onto the sun bus and, strapped into their seats, in the front rows.  
“Welcome to the sun bus girls, traveling time will be around thirty minutes to the destination of camp half blood. Hope you enjoy the ride.”  
“Dad, is this really necessary?” Asked Bell who, was sitting in the seat behind her dad.  
“Sure thing sweetie, we had to go five minutes ago. I was forced to take drastic matters.”  
“Dad” she groaned. Her dad embarrassing her in front of the hunters was nothing new. She still didn’t like the fact that he insisted to do it every time he saw her.  
“Oh, am I embarrassing you pumpkin? You know that I totally meant it. If you think that this is bad, wait until we get to the camp.” He was cackling evilly by this point.  
Thalia zoned out, Bell and Apollo arguing was almost as common as Apollo and Artemis arguing. Yet, neither Bell not Artemis minded as much as they let others think.  
The next thing she knew, she was woken up by the sound of splashing.  
She panicked when outside the window was water. Thinking that she was going to drown, she screamed, very loudly.  
“Thalia” Phoebe shook her shoulder. “We’re not drowning, Apollo turned his car into a sub marine, we’re fine.”  
“Sorry Thalia, had to crash into the lake to avoid burning up the whole camp.”  
By his smile, Thalia could tell that he wasn’t sorry one bit.   
“Fine, can we go now?” Thalia didn’t want to be in any closed place with him for too long.  
“Sure” without so much of a warning, Apollo pressed a button and the roof of the submarine opened. The car got flooded and left the hunters to get soaked.  
When Thalia’s head came out of the water, she took a deep breath and started yelling at Apollo. “Apollo you *censored* of all of the *censored* things you could of done. Just waltzing and kidnapping me and the hunters is not cool. Stop that *censored* laughing.   
And he was laughing. Chuckling hysterically, he said “See you Thalia!” Then, he and Bell headed towards their cabin both unfairly dry.  
When she looked towards her own cabin, Thalia noticed that Jason and her dad were already there. She smiled softly at the fact that Jason was there. It had been a while since she had seen him but looking at her father, she felt a feeling swirling in her that wasn’t hate but, it wasn’t love either.  
Still she walked over, sparks running over her skin as, she grumbled to herself about “stupid sun gods”.  
When she got to her cabin, she noticed that her dad and brother were staring at her. She realized that she must look like a drowned cat. She had dripping hair, clothes practically glued to her skin. Her eyes alone must have been a sight. Even if she hadn’t put any makeup on in the morning, after she was flashed to the sun bus it had magically appeared on her face. Just another reason she had to be mad at Apollo.   
“Hey dad, kid, just one word” sparks were flaring from her hands as she dared them to make one joking comment about her.   
She noticed that Jason was holding back giggles but, didn’t call him out on it. She would have done the same if anybody else had been in her place.  
Her dad however just sighed. With a wave of his hand, she was fully dried again.   
“Sorry about that”. He said it like he wasn’t used to apologizing to anyone. “We only let Apollo pick the hunters up because he has a car that’s big enough and, he has a daughter that’s a hunter.”  
Thalia thought of Bell, with her shining hair and personality. “Yeah, he uses her as an excuse to bother us all of the time.” It wasn’t that he didn’t want to spend time with her. It was just that he also used the time to bother Bell’s fellow hunters.  
Her dad was starting to look uncomfortable. “I’ll tell him to knock it off.” Thalia knew that the attempt would be for nothing. Apollo spent a lot of time bothering them. He wasn’t going to stop just because of an order.  
When he asked if they knew what they were going to do today, Jason guessed leadership. Thalia wasn’t surprised. In her opinion, Jason had the better father, the Romans made Zeus more militaristic. That meant a respectable father, of sorts.  
She guessed something lighting related. Her dad always had a temper.  
When she had heard what they were doing that day, she wasn’t that surprised. She had heard that her dad did spend a lot of time in court dealing with unruly gods back when she was made to study Greek mythology the time that she had to go to school.  
Since Thalia didn’t want to be here in the first place, she decided that judging gods was as good of a job as any.  
After drinking the golden water and possibly vaporizing somebody, Thalia found herself on Olympus.  
Once there, her dad went to his throne and, sat down on it.  
“Each of you can stand in front of my throne.” He told them. Thalia was the first to walk over. She stood on the left side of the throne while Jason walked over and, stood on the right.  
A few seconds later, to Thalia surprise, a letter the color of charcoal appeared in the air and floated down taking its sweet time until it fell in Thalia’s hand.  
“What happened?” Jason was looking at the letter like he expected it to explode any minute.  
Zeus sighed, “That is the first complaint of the day. Whoever’s hand it falls into, is the best suited to judge it. Thalia, all you have to do is open it. Please try to judge fairly.   
Thalia started to tear at the envelope. Before she was even able to finish, she suddenly stopped being aware of her body and found herself sucked into the letter.  
When she became aware of her surroundings again, Thalia was overcome by the strange sensation of not being aware of having a body. In normal circumstances, she would have been understandable freaked out by not having one. Humans, even half ones are hardwired to want to have a body. Thalia could feel herself knowing that she should care but, not caring anyways.  
Deciding that she would try to care about her lack of body later, she started to pay attention to what was happening in front of her.  
She saw a bright and cherry landscape. If it wasn’t for the souls going around everywhere, she would have thought that it was above ground.  
In front of Thalia, stood a soul that looked like woman with a thin body, a stern face with stretched out cheeks and, hair tied tightly in a bun.   
“I am Agatha Thornbottom and, I have a complaint about the situation in Elysium.”  
Thalia wasn’t aware that there was a situation at all.  
Agatha Thornbottom pointed up at something in the sky. “See those?” Thalia saw something that had massive body and wings and, was currently dive-bombing souls.  
“That is a Griffin” She said. “It is currently flying amuck around Elysium, trying to eat the souls. “  
To Thalia’s horror, the Griffin did just that, snatching up an helpless man flying away and, eating its captive midflight. “We may not be able to die from it but, it is still extremely unpleasant to say the least. The worst part?” She left a pause there like someone would answer. “Hades refuses to do anything about it!”   
By this point, she was glaring like whoever she was looking at, was Hades himself. “He says that he has more pressing issues and, can’t be bothered to do anything about it.”  
Then, she seemed to calm down and, said in an even voice, “Whoever is looking at this, would you please make Hades do something about this issue, we are in Elysium for a reason you know.”  
As the message ended, Thalia suddenly became aware that she was not in Elysium but, in the throne room. The only difference from when she was there last time was that the letter was completely open.  
“Thalia, are you ok?” Jason was looking at her concerned.   
“What happened?” Thalia wasn’t sure what happened but, she was sure of one thing. She didn’t like it at all.  
“Thalia read the letter.” Zeus informed him. “To prevent people from crowding the throne room, anyone that has a complaint that I’m fit to judge, will just send it here in the form of a letter. Thalia, having read it, what do you think should happen with the situation?”  
“Don’t you need to know about the situation first?”  
“I don’t even have to open the letter. I saw what you saw.”  
Thalia thought of the look on the soul’s face when it was eaten. “I think that someone should get rid of it.” If she ended up in Elysium, she certainly didn’t want to be Griffin chow.  
Zeus then took out a piece of paper and, wrote something on it. Then, with a snap of his fingers, the letter vanished.  
“What happened to the letter?” Jason was looking at where the letter once was with, a look of slight shock.  
“I sent it to Hermes to deliver to the underworld. Now, there is a lot more so, we better get going.”  
Even if Thalia was dreading the workload after one letter, she thought of doing all of that judging every day. For once in her life, she could start to feel a little bit of respect for her father.


	4. Hazel doesn't think that suspected uprising and family reunions should go together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hazel learns of some trouble in the underword

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that this took so long. I blame the fact that my school assigns way to much homework. The next chapter should be longer.

When the word family reunion came to mind, the things that came to mind for Hazel included things like a barbeque, distant relatives, holidays and trying to be polite.  
Sitting alone at the Hades table, Hazel didn’t think that a feeling of dread was not what the word “family bonding” normally entitled. Then, remember some of the stories that the kids form camp who had large families sometimes told, she revised her feeling from “dread” to “fear for one’s life.”   
A little while later, she found herself standing outside of the Hades cabin in camp half blood with her recently found sort of half brother trying to make awkward conversation less awkward did not fit the picture at all.   
“So Dad, what are we doing today?” Hazel asked. She noticed that he was flickering from his Greek to Roman form and back again.   
“Well,” he said. “I’m planning to take both of you down to the underworld.”  
“Something is up with some of the local Gryphon population and other animals that live there.” Nico put in. He had just come from the underworld with Hades so he had an idea about what was going on.   
“Is there some sort of uprising going on?” Asked Hazel. Like most of the Half Bloods, she had barely survived the last war and was in no hurry for another one.   
Pluto looked a little worried at her statement. “I’m not sure. I can’t enlist much of Thanto’s help since he is occupied with guarding the doors. I’m going to have to go searching myself. Both of the Demi gods suppressed a shiver.   
“Now both of you,” Hades said. “I wouldn’t ask either of your help if this wasn’t needed. If I had my way, both of you would just stay here and we would have this day some other time. He did have a point, unlike most of the other gods; he could get away with taking both of his kids to the underworld for extended periods of time and not worry about getting away with it.   
Hazel took a good look at both her father, who was currently Hades, and her brother who even on a bright day like today seemed to be slightly covered with a shadow. She realized that they were only here to get her help. Nico had lived in and out of the underworld since he had leaved the lotus hotel and into the modern world. He would have little trouble convincing his dad to let him help. If they were there to get her, it must be bad.  
Of course I’m coming. Her decision was underlined with the sun bus crashing into the lake.   
“Looks like my idiot nephew and the half blood hunters have arrived.” Hades commented. Hazel felt a little guilty for finding that funny.   
“Does anyone else know about this?” Watching Thalia come out of the water and start swearing at the sun god, Hazel realized that no one outside of the underworld might have been told about the situation.  
“A few other gods have found out about this and are ready to help if I ask for it but, I don’t think that there is a need for that just yet.”  
“We don’t tell anyone unless we have to. Everyone is edgy enough as it is.” Not for the first time, it struck Hazel how alike her brother and their dad were. For starters, both of them looked like they were itching to go out of the light and back to the underworld.  
“Even I know that no one wants to even talk about another war.” Leaning up against her cabin in a way that she didn’t know mirrored her brother, Hazel felt weary. Whenever people thought of PTSD victims, they normally thought of middle aged to old men who had lived through some sort of war. They probably didn’t think of a fourteen year old girl who had lived through a war against Mother Nature herself and had won by the skin of her teeth.   
Looking away as Zeus, Thalia and Jason flashed off; Hazel asked how they were going to get to the underworld.  
“I think that the easiest way is to Shadow travel. Shall we go?” Hazel felt a little stupid for having to ask. Hades held his hand and Nico and Hazel put their hands on his. Then they were gone.


End file.
